Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 2, sentence 79

He begged a few bits of money, bought a pen, ink, and some paper, and as he was a very beautiful writer, he employed his time in writing Chinese characters and selling them on the street.

Who acts: Yang · What happens: beg, buy, be, employ, sell · To what, where: few bits, pen, beautiful writer, Chinese characters, writing, characters

This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Story of Old China, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Yang), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

Mova's own parse. This tree may be wrong.

The tree

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 begged	nsubj
2	begged	beg	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 bits	det
4	few	few	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 bits	amod
5	bits	bit	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 begged	obj
6	of	of	ADP	_	7 money	case
7	money	money	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 bits	nmod
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 bought	punct
9	bought	buy	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 begged	conj
10	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	11 pen	det
11	pen	pen	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 bought	obj
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 ink	punct
13	ink	ink	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 pen	conj
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 paper	punct
15	and	and	CCONJ	_	17 paper	cc
16	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	17 paper	det
17	paper	paper	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 bought	obl
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	29 employed	punct
19	and	and	CCONJ	_	29 employed	cc
20	as	as	SCONJ	_	26 writer	mark
21	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	26 writer	nsubj
22	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	26 writer	cop
23	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	26 writer	det
24	very	very	ADV	_	25 beautiful	advmod
25	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	Degree=Pos	26 writer	amod
26	writer	writer	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 employed	advcl
27	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 writer	punct
28	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	29 employed	nsubj
29	employed	employ	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 begged	parataxis
30	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	31 time	nmod:poss
31	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 employed	obj
32	in	in	ADP	_	33 writing	case
33	writing	writing	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 employed	obl
34	Chinese	Chinese	ADJ	Degree=Pos	35 characters	amod
35	characters	character	NOUN	Number=Plur	29 employed	obj
36	and	and	CCONJ	_	37 selling	cc
37	selling	sell	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	29 employed	conj
38	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	37 selling	obj
39	on	on	ADP	_	41 street	case
40	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	41 street	det
41	street	street	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 selling	obl
42	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 begged	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	beg speech: request	past	Yang	a few bits of money				vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V NP PP.Topic»: agent=Agent bit=Recipient
2	buy	past	Yang not said here	a pen and ink			some paper obl	vn accept-77.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent pen=Theme
3	is a	past	Yang	a beautiful writer				tree rules
4	employ	past	Yang	Chinese characters	writing	time		vn hire-13.5.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent character=Theme
5	sell	gerund	Yang not said here	characters = character	the street			vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient PP.asset»: agent=Agent they=Theme on street=Asset

One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

Text: «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, Project Gutenberg book 75089 (public domain in the USA). Tree: Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/18/79/

🌲 Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 2, sentence 79

The tree

Pragmatics

Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 2, sentence 79